fêting the forgotten; curating the uncultivated

Category Archives: Barracuda

What a great sight it was to see a ’72 Plymouth Barracuda rocketing up Highway 101 the other day. The color, obviously, inspired by the good folks at Pepto-Bismol seems to be paint code FM3, known as Moulin Rouge for Barracudas and Panther Pink for sister Dodge Challengers. Other Barracuda and Challenger “high impact” colors choices included Plum Crazy/In Violet, Lime LIght/Sublime, Vitamin C Orange/Go-Mango, Tor-Red/Hemi Orange, Lemon Twist/Top Banana, Sassy Grass/Green-Go as well as Curious Yellow/Citron Yella. Office parties at Chrysler’s ad agency in the late 60’s-early 70’s must have been a trip in every sense of the term.

A few weeks back we encountered a forbear of this one, a first generation ’65, in a color we’re calling Neglected Gunmetal.

When Chrysler caught wind of Ford’s plans to launch the Mustang, they transformed the staid Valiant into the swingin’ fastback Barracuda by adding a huge glass window out back. In point of fact, Chrysler’s pre-emptive “pony car” (fishy car?) made it to Plymouth showrooms more than two weeks ahead of Mustang’s retail debut.

Lastly, we noted this Blah Brown ’73 grocery getter with a seriously dented fender in a — where else? — supermarket parking lot.

While Dodge was able to revive the Challenger in recent years, Plymouth can’t bring back the Barracuda because Plymouth is no more. There is, however, talk of a new Barracuda badged SRT, Chrysler’s tuner brand, analogous to Mercedes’ AMG and BMW’s M division. Great, but will it be offered in Vitamin C Orange or Tor-Red?

Not sure what they had in mind with this Jewish mother-themed commercial but well worth watching.